lief to get
these bundles of pelts cleared out of the way.

"Oily Dave's hotel is closed, so I suppose the proprietor has
cleared off out to the fishing," Phil said, as the little brown hut
on the left shore slid by, and they began to rock on the open water
of the river's mouth.

"I expect he has," replied Katherine, who was pulling with long,
steady strokes, the exercise and the wind between them bringing a
bright glow into her face. "Do you know, I am sure he has worked
harder and more honestly this summer than for many a year past; I
believe he is beginning to be a reformed character."

"How long will it take to reform him?" asked Phil, laughing; but
Katherine could only shake her head and say she did not know.

The gulls were riding on the crests of the waves, or skimming so
closely down on the water that it was hard to know whether they
were swimming or flying; and long strings of geese overhead all
headed southward showed plainly that summer was on the wane. All
these things Katherine took note of as she pulled across the choppy
water to Fort Garry, only now they did not sadden her as two days
ago they would have done. Hope had shone into her life again, a
heavy burden had been lifted, and it seemed to her that she could
never again feel quite so sorrowful and worn down as she had done
sometimes during the last few months.

"Hurrah! Safely arrived!" she exclaimed, as the boat grounded on
the pebbly beach in front of the old blockhouse, which looked even
grimmer and uglier on this grey day than when the sun shone down
upon it.

"Good morning, Miss Radford! Now, I wonder who told you how badly
I needed a woman of some sort to happen along this morning?" said
Peter M'Crawney, coming out from the stockade on which the house
was built, and advancing to meet Katherine, who was coming up from
the shore with a great bundle of pelts on each shoulder, while
Phil, laden in similar fashion, walked behind.

"Does that mean that Mrs. M'Crawney is ill again?" Katherine asked.

Peter shrugged his shoulders. "She is desperate uneasy in her
mind, poor lass, and as hard to live with as a houseful of
mosquitoes, which it is lucky I haven't got, or I should be forced
to drown myself to keep from going out of my mind."

"Not so bad as that, I hope," Katherine said with a laugh, and
instantly resolved that it would be her duty to stay an hour with
the poor woman, who pined so much because of the solitude in which
her l